


The Mountains and Hills Before You

by boxoftheskyking



Series: Everything Is a Fucking Crisis [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Casual Sex, Dead Parents, Holidays, Mention of Rape/Non-con, Multi, Multiple Pov, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religion, everything is awful most of the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6255439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PLEASE BE ADVISED, the notice on the door to the mess hall reads in clear red print. FACILITIES DROIDS WILL BE PREPARING THE MESS HALL FOR THE HOLIDAY 21:00 - 04:00. YOUR COOPERATION IS APPRECIATED.</p><p>A holiday happens, Poe and Jess have a fight, Finn learns what choral music sounds like. Poe has a complicated relationship with religion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is now marked as complete because I don't think I'll be writing anymore.
> 
> Sorry it's not super resolved, but enjoy Space Catholic Poe Dameron having a series of crises.

 

* * *

PLEASE BE ADVISED, the notice on the door to the mess hall reads in clear red print. FACILITIES DROIDS WILL BE PREPARING THE MESS HALL FOR THE HOLIDAY 21:00 - 04:00. YOUR COOPERATION IS APPRECIATED.

Poe sighs as he shoves open the door with his shoulder, both hands occupied with finishing a message on his comm and trying to get the top of his hair to lay somewhere in the vicinity of flat.

“In peace, Dameron,” one of the mechanics says jovially, patting him on the back.

“Um. Yeah. That. In peace.” He can’t believe it’s Qiorna’a already. He lost track of the galactic year sometime around Starkiller, and everything that’s come after has felt more like borrowed time than anything. 

Jess is going to kill him. They’ll never find his body.

He moves through the mess line and sees prep staff rinsing giant bowls of red berries in preparation for the holiday. Tomorrow? No, two more days - they’ll have to set the berries out and let them start to rot so they get soft, so the scent starts to fill the hall. He can’t catch a whiff from here, but maybe he’s just distracted.

Finn’s at the table, and he looks far too excited to see his friend. He always looks excited to see Poe. It’s an awful lot of pressure.

“What holiday?” He asks Poe, like they were in the middle of a conversation.

“What? Oh, the sign. It’s Qiorna’a in a few days - Sorry, it’s a Dandoranian holiday that comes around every year. Technically it’s just Doralini—Sorry, the main religion in the Doran system. But pretty much everyone celebrates it nowadays. It’s fun. It’s messy. You get off work.”

“Dandoran is Jessika’s home planet?”

“Yeah. She’s actually devout, too, so she’ll really be celebrating.”

“Is it for a god? Like the one on Endor you told me about?”

Poe shoves a spoonful of rice into his mouth, shrugging until he can speak again. “Not so much. Practicing Doralini like Jess believe in the Force. It’s like we do in the Yavin system, just different details. I think some of them have some household gods or spirits, but the Force is the main focus. Their version of it, anyway. Qiorna’a isn’t too religious, though, not on base. If you don’t want to go to the temple you can skip that part and just party.”

“Party like the one with the music?” Finn looks excited at the idea, fork frozen halfway to his mouth.

Poe can’t help but laugh. “Bigger than that, pal. There’s music, though. Special songs for the holiday.”

He’s interrupted by Snap’s arrival. Snap claps him on the shoulder as he claims the seat next to him, smacking a kiss to the side of his head.

“In peace, buddy,” he says. “In peace, Finn.”

“In peace,” Poe responds, rolling his eyes. “You’re not even Doralini. How are you still this excited?”

“What does it mean? In peace?” Finn asks.

“Traditional greeting for Qiorna’a. Best day of the year.”

“What’s Qiorna’a?” Finn asks.

Poe blinks at him. This has happened a few times, Finn asking the same questions a few times before getting the answer. He’s not sure why it happens, or if Finn even knows that he does it, but he hasn’t brought it up because he doesn’t want Finn to think he’s done something wrong when it’s not really something important. And he can’t think of any reason that would be at all  _ happy _ or  _ comforting _ , so.  _ Yes, Poe, I ask questions multiple times because all of years of torture back with the First Order shorted out part of my short term memory.  _ Or  _ I always ask someone else to explain things because I think you’re lying to me. _

Poe bites his lip. Snap’s midway into his “Reasons Why Qiorna’a Is the Best Day of the Galactic Year" Speech. 

“— different every year, but traditional celebrations include the Berry Festival, a whole lot of music, and the Xina’a Borom, or the blessing of the Partners.”

Finn looks slightly overwhelmed. “Okay. And those are all . . . good things.”

“Yeah, it’s a good time. But best of all, it’s the one day a year on this Force-forsaken outpost that we get to see our families.”

“Some of us,” Poe corrects.

“Some of us. We can’t have the base overrun with visitors all on the same day, of course, but we can put in a request with the General for one holiday a year and she and command allow families to come stay for up to two whole days, if it’s safe enough. Qiorna’a is mine.”

“What’s yours?” Finn asks Poe.

He shrugs. “No family to come visit.”

Finn claps him on the shoulder. “Me either. I’d visit you, though. If I wasn’t here already, I mean.” He grins at Poe and Poe gives him a little helpless smile in return. He’s trying to think of something to say in reply  that’s even one percent as sweet, but Finn’s already turned away.

“Who do you have coming, Snap?”

Snap lights up. “My kids. Both of them this year!”

“Kiri got out of school?” Poe asks.

“She did. My mother’s arriving with both of them tomorrow.”

“You have  _ kids _ ?” Finn asks, thunderstruck.

“Yeah, pal. Nine and six years old. Two best things I ever did.”

“Is Kiri nine already?” Poe asks, rubbing his face. “Fuck, I’m old.”

“Tell me about it,” Snap laughs. 

“Why don’t they live here?” Finn asks.

“It isn’t safe. They’ve been with my mother since theirs died a few years back. When the war’s done, I’ll be with them again.”

He looks so sure of himself, like he really believes that the war will end, someday soon, and he’ll be alive to see it when it does. Poe can’t look at him, pokes at his mushy rice with the edge of a spoon. He used to talk like that, probably. Somebody else sat here, biting their tongue, thinking  _ man, this kid really believes _ . 

He should go.

He’s about to rise when Jess joins them, sweaty and grease-smeared.

“Sorry, couldn’t get to the ‘fresher before the chow line closed,” she says as she squeezes in next to Snap. 

He recoils, “Holy guardian of bantha droppings, you smell like a—”

“Yeah, I know, thanks.”

“In peace, Jessika,” Poe says, making a face at her when she rolls her eyes up at him. 

“In peace, dipshit. And you, Wexley. Finn.”

“In peace,” the others chorus in reply.

“What does it mean, “in peace”?” Finn asks her. Poe gives him another look, but Finn ignores it.

Jess finishes her bite and leans toward him. “It’s a greeting for Qiorna’a. Holiday from my home planet that a lot of people here have kind of adopted. Lots of places with Force-based religions— or at least kind of Force-based like the heathens on Yavin 4—” Poe kicks her under the table and she throws a bean at his face “—they have a similar celebration. Ours is based around the life, or death, really, of a pair of Jedi from Dandoran in ancient times. I don’t know how much of it is true, but it’s a time to celebrate the Force, the connection between people. ‘In peace’ is because according to the legend it’s the last thing the Jedi said before they were killed. ‘We go to join with the light in peace, in peace.’”

“Dark,” Poe says.

“I will hit you,” Jess says. “Even if you are my xina’a, I will still hit you.”

“Your what?” Finn asks. Poe moves some beans around on his plate, not looking at him. Of course she’d bring it up. He opens his mouth to make his farewells, but Jess cuts him off

“There’s a part of the service called the Blessing of Partners. If you’ve got, like, a wife or a brother or a co-parent or something it’s usually them, but it can be a friend if you want. Somebody to do the ritual with you, hang out with you on the day of Qiorna’a. Usually only people actually from Dandoran have them. Poe’s been mine for like the last five years. What are you wearing, by the way? I know the shirt you had last year got destroyed beyond repair when you lent it to Ello.” 

Poe bites his lip. He has to say it eventually. “It doesn’t look like I’ll be here this year.”

There’s an awkward silence at the table. Snap looks between Poe and Jess, confused, and Jess just blinks.

“What?”

“The General has a mission for me. High priority. I couldn’t get it moved.”

“ _ What _ ?”

“It’s not like I  _ want _ to miss it, Testor, I just have a—”

“Then shouldn’t we be going, too? We’ll do our own celebration after.”

Snap looks reluctant, but says nothing.

“No, no, it’s a one man recon thing. Snap’s kids are coming, she didn’t want to take him away. It’s fine. You’ll have fun.”

“But—” Jess looks entirely taken aback, not even hurt. Not yet. “But you’re my—”

“You can take someone else. Take Finn. Take whoever.”

“I—”

“Shit, it’s not like we’re married.”

Jess shuts her mouth, nods, jaw clenching. Poe kicks himself internally, gives up and rises with his tray before he hits another innocent bystander with whatever shrapnel’s deciding to come out of his mouth.

“It’ll be fine. Take Finn. He’ll be great. Now I’ve got to go get briefed. In peace, everyone.” Poe rises, taking his tray with him, and Jess still looks a bit like she’s been slapped. He stops before leaving to say, “Sorry, Jess,” so quietly he thinks she might have missed it.

As he leaves he hears her stunned “What the fuck?” from behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. Once he gets out into the hallway he leans his head against the wall, breathing carefully like his ribs are snapped again. It helps, a little. 

He rubs at his eyes. He’s made a reputation based on being two things - earnest and dependable. If he can keep just those two traits, he knows who he is. Poe Dameron means what he says. You can depend on Poe Dameron. Give him a mission, any mission, no matter how impossible, and he won’t fail you.

_ Except, _ one side of his brain says,  _ when you do fail. When you fail so hugely that it takes a defecting Stormtrooper to clean up your mess. _

_ Lose the battle _ , the other side argues,  _ win the war. _

_ Oh, little pilot _ , the scornful, sneering voice that takes up more and more space every day.  _ You don’t really believe you see the end of the  _ war _ , do you? You haven’t really been thinking  _ that _ , have you? _

_ No. _ Poe thinks.  _ Not really. _

He slams an open palm into the wall and somebody near him jumps.

“Shit,” he says, turning to see one of the youngest medics - an intern probably - staring at him like he might go for her next. He wants to throw up. Or he wants her to stab him with something. Medics carry scalpels, right? That’s a thing? “Sorry. There was a, a bug. Sorry. One of the tsor flies. Hate how they, you know. They bite.”

“Right,” she says in a tiny, accented voice.

“Sorry for scaring you.”

“That’s okay, Commander.” She doesn’t look at him as she eases past, back to the wall like he’s taking up half the hallway. He takes up so much space these days, and everyone seems to notice. 

When he’s back in his room, restocking his medkit, an awkward looking Finn stops by. 

“Hey, buddy,” Poe says, nodding towards the vacant chair. “Glad you caught me; I leave at first light.”

“Where are you going?” Finn asks, sitting.

Poe grins at him. “Classified.”

Finn rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

“Nah, it’s nothing. Suspected First Order activity out by the Krrhan System. A few Resistance-friendly outposts have gone dark in the past month, so I’m gonna check it out, see if we need to get some allies out.”

“Be careful.”

“Always am.”

“Yeah, right up until you’re not.” Finn plays with the sleeve of his jacket. “Too bad you’re missing the holiday. Chorna?”

“Qiorna’a. Yeah. It’s all right, you’ll have a good time. The music’s great at the temple, if you decide to go.”

“Jess was pretty—”

“Jess will be fine.”

Finn shuts up. Poe winces.

“Sorry.”

“She didn’t seem that, um, that fine. I mean, she was mad that you waited til now to tell her.”

“That was shitty of me,” Poe agrees.  _ Shittier than you know, actually _ . “I just knew she wouldn’t be happy, and, well, can you blame me for trying to avoid that as long as I can?”

He flashes Finn a winning smile, a little too big, but still earnest. 

Finn smiles back. “Snap told me getting between you two was like navigating an asteroid belt. Better to leave you guys to the tricky stuff and rejoin when it’s clear.”

Poe snorts and changes the subject. “Hey, can I ask you something?” he says, setting his medkit back on the ground next to his piled up flight suit. Finn nods. “How come you asked Snap about the holiday? And Jess, too?”

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, I explained it to you already. And other stuff - you asked me about the rec rooms after I know Nien already told you? Is it— Do you know you do that?”

“Do I know I ask questions?”

“You ask the same thing to different people. Is it a memory thing? Or a, a trust thing?”

“Oh, yeah, I do that. I always ask other people. I remember everything that everybody says.”

“Why do — I mean, you know I don’t lie to you. I won’t, not about anything.”

Finn half rises, grabbing Poe’s knee. “No, no! I know that! I know. I just—” He takes his hand back and looks down, sheepishly. “It’s how I’m learning about everybody. General Organa gave me a datapad with pretty much everything I need to know about the base and who’s here and the history of the Resistance. I didn’t even need to ask you about all that.”

It stings, a little, to hear that, and it must show on his face because Finn reaches out to him again.

“No, no! I’m glad you taught me everything. It’s how I learn about the people. The way you explain Qiorna’a tells me about you, and the way Snap tells it tells me about him. And Jess, and anyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it’s a party, and that it’s different from the kind of holiday you had on Yavin 4. So you like parties, and the religion you had growing up is still important to you. Snap loves it because he gets to see his family— I wouldn’t have even known he has kids if I hadn’t asked him. And the story is important to Jess, and the tradition.”

Poe is watching him with an odd expression, head cocked to the side. 

“What?”

Poe smiles. “Nothing, I just— The way I explain what a rec room is is different from how Nien explains it?”

“You told me where all the comfortable seats are. Nien told me sound carries all the way down the hall to his room, so he wishes people would keep it down in there after lights out. Tells me a lot about you, and a lot about him.”

Poe laughs. “You are something else, you know that?”

“You say that a lot,” Finn sighs. “I still don’t know what it means. I’m human as anyone.”

Poe laughs. “It doesn’t mean anything, buddy. I just like you, that’s all.”

* * *

 

The next day, after Poe’s been gone for four hours, Finn meets Snap’s kids. Kiri, the girl, is incredibly smart, and wants to know everything about being a Stormtrooper. Now that he’s been with the Resistance for a few months, he doesn’t think most of what he has to say is appropriate for a nine-year-old. He tells her anyway. She’s very insistent. 

The boy marches up to Finn with his hand outstretched and shouts, “Hello, Mister Finn, I’m Oggreon Wexley but you can call me Oggie because you’re friends with my Dad and so you’re friends with me and I’m six years old.” Finn shakes his hand and says, “Nice to meet you, Oggie,” and Oggie smiles at him and runs away. Finn doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone who was six years old, not since he was little himself. It makes him smile.

Jessika asks him to be her xina’a. He says yes tentatively, and asks if there’s anything he needs to memorize. She gives him a squeeze and tells him to just show up.

“We mostly wear white, if we have it. Something light. And no shoes, obviously.”

_ Obviously, _ Finn thinks, wondering what he’s gotten himself into. 

He wakes on the morning of Qiorna’a to singing. At first he thinks someone is being horribly murdered, but the sound resolves itself into a throaty holler in a language he doesn’t know. A huge chorus echoes when the first voice fades out, a call and response that’s half singing, half chanting. He gets up to look out his little slit of a window, but can’t see much from his room. All he can see is a thin stream of people dressed in white making their way around the side of the main barracks. He pulls on his clothes - a pair of light brown pants and the lightest blue shirt he owns. When he was sent to get clothes from the main storage rooms, all he said was, “No white, no black, never again.” Now he just hopes he’s not the only one out of place.

When he gets out to the crowd that’s gathered between the main base and the hangar, most of the base is already there. He catches sight of Jess  in the center of what looks like the main group, all Doralini, all in white, singing in that strange, ancient language. Finn’s never heard her speak anything but Basic, but she’s singing with no hesitation. He wishes he could pick out her voice. Her eyes are closed and she’s holding hands with the women on either side of her, swaying forward and back. There’s a woman at the front of the group who seems to be leading, waving a stick that’s covered in trailing red ribbons. Finn shoulders his way into a group who look as uncomfortable as he feels, people who have never seen this before. He spots Rey off to one side, but can’t make his way over to her. She’s dressed in her usual grey, and he’s glad she also doesn’t seem to have the right uniform. He waves to catch her eye and she smiles over at him, nodding towards the singing. He smiles back and gives her a thumbs up.

After about twenty minutes, the singing ends and everyone watching cheers. The Doralini group smiles and waves, and then starts mingling with the larger crowd. Jess looks around like she’s missing someone, and Finn waves until she spots him.

“There you are! You don’t have anything white?”

“I— No, I—”

“Don’t worry about it, it’ll work. Come, we have to get tied.”

Finn lets her drag him off, casting Rey a confused look over his shoulder. She gives him a thumbs up.

Pairs of people, most of them both in white, are lining up in front of the woman with the stick. Jess and Finn join at the back, and Jess keeps a tight hold onto his arm.

“You don’t really have to do anything,” she shouts in his ear over the noise of the crowd. “It’s mostly call and response. Just do what I do. And, you know, enjoy yourself.”

“Tell me if I mess up,” he yells back. “I don’t want to mess it up for you.”

She gives him an oddly soft look and leans up to kiss his cheek. “You won’t. It’ll be great. I’m—” She looks around at the crowd and leans in closer toward him, pressing into his side. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He wraps an arm around her on instinct as the crowd gets thicker. She feels oddly small next to him, or maybe it’s just the way she’s looking down at her feet, breathing evenly. 

“I’m glad you asked me to be your xina’a,” he says, pronouncing the word carefully. “I don’t have any family to visit me.”

She leans her head on his shoulder and they shuffle a step closer to the front of the line. “Me neither,” she says. “Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Jess keeps her forehead tucked against his shoulder, so he has to lean in to hear her. “I had a sister. I don’t anymore.”

“She died?”

Jess nods.

“I’m sorry.”

“She—” somebody in the crowd knocks into her and she ends up practically in Finn’s arms. He holds her loosely enough that all she has to do is step away, but she doesn’t. 

“Her name was Leona,” Jess says, looking him right in the eye. “She was stationed on Hosnian Prime. She was my big sister”

It’s a kick to the gut, the name, the planet, the dampness of Jess’ eyes. One human, one person with a name, gone because of Starkiller. It’s been hard for him to conceive of the destruction of a planet, given his limited experience with civilization, with people. But Leona Pava, sister of Jess, was a person and he could have saved her.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and it’s slightly choked this time. Jess narrows her eyes at him.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have - If I’d left earlier. If I’d come to my senses and found a way to stop them, stop Starkiller—

“Hey, hey, hey.” She grabs his shoulders. “Then something else awful would have happened. You wouldn’t be here. That fucker Dameron wouldn’t be here. Who knows who else we’d have lost? Don’t do that. Don’t ignore everything you’ve done right because it took you time to get there.”

The line moves ahead, shuffling them toward the front.

“Hey?” Jess looks him dead in the eye. “Okay? Don’t do that.”

Finn nods once and squeezes her a bit around the waist. “I used to be so scared of you,” he blurts out.

“What?”

“I did. You called me Trooper all the time and I hated it.”

Jess laughs. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“I  _ fucking _ hated it.” He doesn’t know why that makes him laugh, but it does, and he does. 

Jess laughs back at him. “I’m such a dick.”

“You didn’t mean it. I can always tell when somebody means it.”

Jess leans up to kiss his cheek again, and they reach the front of the line.

They reach the old woman with the stick—up close, FInn recognizes her as one of the command center tech staff—and Jess holds on to Finn’s right arm with her left and holds out their hands.  The woman says something in the odd language, and Jess coaches Finn through the response.

“In peace,” the old woman says, tying their forearms together.

“In peace,” they echo, and move out of the line.

“There we go, you’re stuck with me ‘til dinner.” Jess nudges him, almost knocking him off balance. He groans and she laughs at him.

She leads him to a corner of the base he hasn’t explored much. He’d been by the room that everyone called the Temple at least once, on his first tour of the compound, but it’s really just a room with a skylight, beige and utilitarian with rows of benches arranged on risers around all five walls. Some committees have meeting there, and Finn knows a few of the intelligence staff go there when they need a quiet place to spread out their data.

It’s packed, this morning, mostly pairs with red ribbons tying them together. Finn’s palms were embarrassingly sweaty for the first fifteen minutes of being Jess’s xina’a, but they’ve gotten used to it by now. It’s not uncomfortably tight, just enough to keep them touching. It’s nicer when they’re sitting, because the difference in height is less of an issue.

The service, such as it is, is in a Dandoranian language that Finn doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t seem to matter very much. For every line spoken there are at least three sung, and Finn finds himself leaning into the vibration of it, the waves of sound on all sides. At one point, he hears Jess whisper something with “Leona” in the middle of it, so he squeezes her hand. The last song is simple and repetitive, with different groups in the room starting at different times and creating a complicated, braiding harmony. Jess nudges him and he joins in, shyly, easily picking up the lilting melody and the three repeated words. The first groups start to fade out, until only the last few voices remain. 

“Go to the light in peace,” Jess whispers to him. “That’s what those words mean.”

She leans her head against his shoulder, and he closes his eyes, floating in the  feeling of it. Peace.

The mess hall, by contrast, is complete pandemonium. The less devout have been drinking for the past half hour, passing around large pitchers of some red, red, drink that stains everyone’s lips bright pink. The tables have been moved to the edges of the room, packed with people, and the open floorspace is coated in some kind of waxy coating that Finn feels against his bare feet. As the xina’a enter the hall, a huge cheer goes up, whoops and shouts and pounding on tables. A few men start to wheel prep carts out of the kitchen which hold huge metal bowls full of red, red berries. Finn starts to notice the smell, sickly sweet and a little intoxicating. He thought it was just the drink—which somebody shoves into his free hand—but it’s the berries themselves. They’re sweet and slightly rotten, and something tells him they’re the same fruit that made whatever it is he’s drinking. Jess finishes her drink and tosses the empty cup—not breakable, thankfully—behind her.

“Hey,” she says, lips pink. “You know how we’re all wearing white?”

“Yeah. The Light side, right?”

She waggles her free hand. “Ehhh, kind of. Thank you.” Someone gives her a new glass, and she drains it. “It’s because we all look so nice and clean, you know?”

“Okay?”

“Here, drink more. It’s time to get messed up.”

“Messed up?”

Jess grins at him and her teeth are pink. “Messed the fuck up, sweetheart.”

As she says it, people begin tipping the berries out onto the ground, where they bounce and roll and cover the empty space.

Jess wiggles her eyebrows at him. “You ready?”

“Oh, shit,” Finn says, intelligently, and drains his drink. He knows it’s coming, but he’s still pulled half off his feet when Jess takes off towards the center of the room to jump with bare feet on a pile of rotting berries. She whoops, and the room whoops back, and Finn stumbles after her, shouting nonsense words and stomping the shit out of thousands of berries. The rest of the room joins in, screaming and laughing and spinning each other around in the mess, red and pink splattering up calves, onto pants, staining feet. Every so often somebody slips and falls and gets yanked back up by dozens of hands, red up to their hair. A couple next to him pull each other close for a solid kiss, then untie their ribbon and throw it up into the air. He sees other ribbons go flying, and turns to Jess.

“It’s okay if you don’t—” she starts, but he leans in and gives her a light, warm, kiss on the mouth. Her cheeks are pink as berry juice, and she gives his hand a squeeze as they untie themselves. She throws the ribbon up in the air with a holler and pulls him into an awkward spin. He’s so taken over by the sound and spectacle of it all that he doesn’t notice when she starts to cry.

Finn laughs and drinks and dances like a lunatic, the crowd pulling him this way and that, joy burning through him, staining him, turning him into something new.

* * *

 

Jess is waiting for Poe when he lands, giving up the pretense of tinkering with her astromech. She considered skipping this confrontation entirely, but he’s been gone long enough for her to get worked up and not long enough for her to forget about it. He hops down from the ladder and gives her that boyish “miss me” grin, still looking old around the eyes like he has since Starkiller. Maybe since Jakku. She doesn’t give a shit how he feels now, though, because he’s an asshole. 

“Hey, Testor.”

“You’re coming with me,” is all she says, turning on her heel.

“Where?”

“My place.”

He huffs a laugh. “Well, shit, can I shower first?”

“No.” She does not laugh.

“Um. What’s up?”

She says nothing and leads him into the barracks. 

“Something happen while I was away?” he asks, touching her elbow. 

She yanks her arm away, hard, and scoffs, loud and angry. She gets to her door, taps her keycard, and stalks inside. The door slides shut behind Poe, and Jess turns to face him with her arms crossed.

“Did something  _ happen _ ?” she growls. “You missed Qiorna’a.”

“I told you, there was a missi—”

“The General told you not to go!”

“What?”

“I talked to the General. She said she told you not to go ‘til after!” Jess hates this feeling, hates being mad at him. Hates being mad period, but it’s worse being mad at Poe. There’s nothing fun about it, nothing challenging. They’ve never been rivals or enemies or the butt of each other’s jokes. They don’t fight unless they really, really have to.

Poe bites his lip. “I mean, she didn’t tell me  _ not _ to go. She told me I didn’t  _ have  _ to—”

“You’re my xina’a. You have been for five years now. And now you, you just take off like it doesn’t, like it doesn’t matter? Like doesn’t mean anything?”

“Who’d you go with?”

“Finn.”

Poe looks surprised, but not displeased. “How did he do?”

“Fine. He’s a good sport.” 

Poe nods and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something. Complimenting Finn is something he can always be counted on to do. Jess cuts him off before he can start.

“But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get what it means. What it means to me.”

Poe looks down at his feet. 

“Look, Jess, I—”

“Don’t say I’m sorry, don’t just apologize like that undoes everything.” Her eyes are pricking now and she feels an itch on her back like a rash and this is the worst, the  _ worst _ , because she hates these fights. She wants to just grit her teeth and move past it, but he hurt her and he’s her friend she needs to tell him when he hurts her and she’s almost thirty fucking years old and he shouldn’t be able to make her cry just by letting her down. “It means a lot to me,” she says, evenly, lip only shaking a little, arms tight around her middle. “And you know that. And I don’t think you forgot. I think you knew that it would—” she shuts her eyes because she hates this, hates this,  _ hates _ when they have to  _ talk _ feelings, they should just  _ know _ — “I think you know how I would feel, that it would hurt me and you did it anyway—”

“Jess—”

“And I want to know why. And I want you to, to make it up to me, or something.”

He says nothing, scratching the back of his neck. They’re kind of half looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes, and she knows if they talk about this later he’ll tell her he itched along his neck and the backs of his arms, because he’s like her and he  _ hates _ this.

“I just,” he starts, and yanks at his hair in that absent way he has. “If there’s work I need to be doing it. I can’t— I can’t just sit and celebrate, not when there’s so much to be done.”

She stares at him, because it doesn’t sound true. She knows him and she knows his voice and he doesn’t sound real.

“Poe,” she says, and she hates how small her voice sounds, like a kid in a fight with her best friend, about to cry. “It's the first year without Leona.”

He looks up at her, stricken in a second, sucking in a breath like he just stepped out into the cold. It’s that reaction that forces her back onto her bed, curling her knees up to her chest.

“You forgot,” she says.

His mouth works, silently. “I— Fuck.  _ Fuck.” _

“You  _ forgot. _ I needed you and you weren’t there. You just . . . forgot.”

“I— Jessie.” He kneels down in front of her and she tucks her face into her knees and starts to actually cry, because she hurts and she hurts and he hurt her, thoughtlessly, like he never has before. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I watched them all arrive,” she chokes out. “Everybody who had family. Everyone with Resistance family all gathered together. Snap’s kids, Kalonia had her daughter there. Even the General, even she had her brother here this time, and I was alone. I’m just alone, and I’m standing there, looking around like I’m going to see her. Even the General had her brother, and she’s not even  _ from _ —” she cuts off, because it’s uncharitable and mean and it’s not the General’s fault.

“Jessie, I’m so sorry.” He reaches up and holds her arms, just resting his hands on them so she can push him away if she wants. She doesn’t. “I’m so— I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve been so wrapped up in— Fuck.  _ Fuck _ .” 

She doesn’t mind crying so much if she’s not doing it alone.

“My sister’s dead,” she says to her knees. “She’s dead. She’s dead.” She feels like ice. Everything feels like ice. “Lots of people are dead. Lots of people’s sisters. I should just— I shouldn’t—”

“Stop it,” he commands. “You feel it. You should feel it; you’re not a s—” He cuts himself off and kisses her knee instead.

“A Stormtrooper? You were going to say stormtrooper.” She chokes a little on what might have been a laugh and her eyes spill over. “ We can’t say that anymore. He’s a good— He’s so, he’s such a good— But I was looking across the temple at everyone, and Karé was next to me, but she wasn’t Leona, and Finn was on the other side, but he wasn’t  _ you _ , and nothing was  _ right _ —” 

She gives up on talking and just cries. She cried for a month after losing Leona, every single night, and then just stopped. Now it’s like everything she’s stored up for the past eight months is pouring through her, burning as it runs like acid up through her eyes. Poe leans up and wraps his arms around her, his flight suit scratchy on her skin, and he shifts her over until she’s lying down and she goes along with him because this kind of crying takes all of her energy. She already feels tired and isn’t even halfway out of it yet.

“I should have been there,” he whispers into her hair, rocking her just slightly. “I shouldn’t have left. I’m so sorry. I’ve got you now. I’ve got you.”

After a long series of minutes, her breathing starts to slow and she begins to doze.. She’s not quite unconscious, but she’s tired and warm and feels him breathing beside her and she starts to feel close to okay again. Mostly human. 

Time stretches and wraps around her and her head is fuzzy and clogged from crying and she leans over the edge of the bed to find something to blow her nose on. She turns back into Poe’s arms and looks at him. He’s peeled off his flight suit and kicked it down to the bottom of the bunk, so he’s just in his sweaty undershirt and boxers. He smells, but it’s kind of comforting so she only kind of makes a face at him. He reaches up and scratches her scalp.

“Why’d you leave?” she asks, voice quiet and raspy.

He thinks for a minute. “I can’t go back to the temple,” he says finally.

“Since when?”

“Jakku.”

“Really? So all of those holidays . . .”

“The General knows. I ask her for missions and she — I told her I can’t go in there, and I can’t be here for the holidays because people would notice, and—”

“Why not?”

He scrubs a hand over his eyes. “Jakku. After, when the First Order had me.”

“The interrogation.”

“Yeah.”

“Torture.”

“Yeah.”

She rubs his forearm with her thumb. “I would have thought it would help. You always— after a bad fight, after we lose somebody you’re always there. I thought it helped.”

“It’s not the torture. Or, it is, but it’s—”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

He laughs, weirdly, sounding strained, and digs both hands into his hair, rolling away from her.

“What do you know about the Dark Side? Like, personally.”

“You mean beside the whole war thing?”

“Have you ever seen it, up close? A Sith or, a, a, just anybody using the Force like that?”

“No.”

He’s staring up at the ceiling with a faraway look. “It’s so wrong. It’s just, it feels so  _ wrong _ , it’s like the universe is inside out. It’s like all the parts of you are busted open, or like blisters, bursting and leaking everywhere. It’s like a needle to the spine, you know. Just. Wrong.”

“Ren, you mean. You told me he took information from you mind. That’s— I can’t even imagine.”

“It’s not just that. It’s— I mean, yeah, it’s fucked—”

“Seriously fucked.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what keeps me away. We’ve always known what the Sith did, what Jedi were capable of.”

“So . . .”

He turns to face her and takes one of her hands, pressing it between his cheek and the pillow. She scratches at his stubble a little.

“The torture was bad,” he begins. “Not, like, permanently damaging. But . . . unsettling. I mean, I’ve taken beatings before. And like, that time with the Gibrani, you remember—”

“That was basically torture.”

“Right, they wanted us to suffer. They were trying, anyway. So it’s shitty, but it’s not new, not really. But the First Order— They weren’t angry. The stormtroopers, the officers. It was technical, like being crushed by a machine. They didn’t take any joy in it, which I guess should be reassuring, but I almost wished they were sadistic about it. This was like I wasn’t even human. It was like digging around in a malfunctioning droid, trying to see what wires to cut.”

Jess shivers and runs a finger over the scar near his eye.

“So, yeah, sometimes that fucks me up. Sometimes I wake up screaming, but everybody does, around here.”

Jess nods, although she’s more prone to waking up unable to breathe, scrambling for an inhaler from her bedside table until she can get it back under control.

“But that’s workable. I mean, I know how to handle that. But while it was happening, while I was just surviving and keeping quiet, all I was thinking about was being back in the temple. Here, or the one back at home, the old ruin my grandmother used to take me to. They were cutting into me, but I was just breathing and thinking about the temple, the light filtering in, the singing. Someone singing and how the sound rings out in that room. How you can feel it around you, the Force, running through you like a, a second nervous system, how you can just reach out and know it’s there.”

She knows. This was something they had in common from the very beginning. Faith, or belief, or something like it.

“I used to imagine — I guess I never really stopped imagining that it came from inside my bones. I don’t know where the image came from - I think my dad had an anatomy primer on his datapad and I remember looking at it a lot when I was a kid. And I think I fixated on the marrow in the bones, this diagram of a bone split open. I used to sit there in the temple when the prayers started and I’d close my eyes and I’d imagine my bones opening up, every one of them, and filling with this humming, this power. That’s where it came from, the Force and the singing.”

“I like that,” she says, and traces along his jaw. “The bones.”

“And that’s where I was, in my mind, no matter how they hurt me. And I felt so strong, like they couldn’t ever touch me, not really. Not when I was somewhere else, when I was wrapped up in this shining thing, this power. Just like my ma taught me when I couldn’t even walk yet. And I just wanted to get home and hear the singing.”

He goes quiet for a long time, rolling onto his back. She isn’t sure if he wants to be touched, so she pulls her hands back, tucks them under the pillow. She waits. Finally he blows out a long breath, careful and even. 

“And he came in. And I was so— I was cocky, I guess. I was ready for whatever was next, and I knew. I just  _ knew _ , I had the Light Side of the Force in me and around me, and I wanted to see him try. And he— It’s just so  _ wrong _ . He reached in and it was like— Everything I had done to survive so far, that connection I was working so hard to keep with the Force. It was what he needed. I had already opened the door for him, and it was like he was thanking me for letting him in. He just— My whole . . . self. Soul. Ghost, whatever it is. Whatever drives this—” he scratches at his chest and she stills his hand.  “Whatever it is, that part of you that no one should touch. Being touched like that, it—”

She squeezes his hand and presses her cheek to his bare shoulder.

“And I let him in. I was ready for him. It’s like when someone, you know, someone touches you or tries to— you know, you don’t want it, but you still get hard, or you get wet, and then you feel like your body’s agreeing to something you don’t want? You know? Like, it’s just a reaction and you can’t stop it and it’s not, it’s not okay, but they feel it and they think you—”

“Yeah.”

“And you think maybe you deserved it because you—”

He looks over at her. She kisses his shoulder. 

“Fuck,” he whispers.

“Yeah.”

“It’s like I was ready for him.” He swallows once, twice, squeezes his eyes shut. “All that time I thought I was protecting myself, I was just getting ready for him. And now it’s all wrecked, it’s all ruined. I can’t find it again, and every time I try to reach out, try to feel it, he’s there. Because I let him in, I  _ let him _ —”

“You didn’t,” she says firmly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve that; no one does. It’s not your fault he has powers you don’t. He has training."

“That’s the problem. He’s— He’s strong with the Force.” He spits it out like it hurts. “The Dark Side, but still the same Force. And they tell us there has to be balance. Both Light and Dark. So what he does, what he did, that’s— Is that holy? Should I be— I mean, if I really believe, the way I always did, then it should be holy. I should be— This is what I get, isn’t it? This is as close as I get to—”

“Shh,” she leans up on an elbow, curling over him and pressing a thumb to his lips. His eyes are closed and he’s shaking.

“I just want to go back, Jessie. I’d give anything. I want be your xina’a, I want to feel it again. I want to hear the singing. But every time I get close, every time I think about walking through the door I remember letting him in. I remember how  _ nothing _ I am compared to him. I’m not even human, if he’s what human is.”

“He’s not,” she says, and kisses his lips lightly while he gasps. “And anything you are, I’m the same. You and me, we’re the same.”

He keeps his eyes closed and nods and pulls her on top of him, tucking his face into her neck.

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it.”

He breathes in, slowly. Out, slowly.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” he whispers.

“You’ll get it back. You’ll come back.”

He doesn’t say anything, just holds her and breathes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe Dameron feels complicated about religion. And has a threesome. Must be Thursday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now marked as complete because I don't think I'll be writing anymore.
> 
> Sorry it's not super resolved, but enjoy Space Catholic Poe Dameron having a series of crises.

Luke Skywalker has been creeping everybody out. It’s nothing about him as a person—in conversation he is friendly, quiet, a bit reserved but not so much as to be rude. But in the mess, or outside the hangar, or in the line for the public refreshers, he has a tendency to come up to people and lean just a little too close and look a little too intently into their eyes.

“It’s the Force-o-meter,” Bastian says with his mouth half-full. “He’s checking everyone to see if they have the Force.”

“Everyone _has_ the Force,” Poe sighs. “That’s the point of the Force.”

“Checking if they’re sensitive to it, then. If they can use it. That accurate enough for you, your holiness?”

Poe just shrugs. _I haven’t been to the temple in almost a year_ , he doesn’t say. “He find anybody?”

“A couple, I think. At least one mechanic, I think some from command. The kid, of course.”

“Rey?”

“No, the kid. I mean, yeah, Rey, of course. But the other kid. Your guy, Finn.”

“Don’t call him a kid.”

“Okay, okay. Sensitive.”

Poe sighs. “I’m not— I just mean he deserves better than that. He’s a smart guy, you know—”

“I know, man, he’s just like twenty years old. That’s all I’m saying.”

Poe nods. Rubs at his eyes.

“You okay, boss?” Bastian asks. Poe really, genuinely likes Bastian a lot, but one of his best qualities is his need to be sensitive to people’s feelings. Poe’s not entirely up for people acknowledging his feelings these days. “You sleeping okay?”

“Yeah, I’m all good. So, you think Skywalker’s going to train all of them? Make up an army of Jedi?”

“A small militia, maybe. We need all the help we can get.”

“You get checked out? Any secret superpowers?” It feels weird to talk about it so flippantly, like everyone else does. He can feel his dad’s disapproval from another dimension.

Bastian snorts. “Yeah, sure. My astromech’s probably got more Force than me.”

Poe starts to itch around the collar, checks a fake message on his commlink. “Shit, man. Sorry, I gotta finish up approving some specs.”

“No rest for the restless, yeah?”

“Something like that.”

As he leaves, he brushes past Skywalker, almost missing him entirely. He’s not wearing his whole Jedi getup, which Poe thinks is slightly unfair. Dangerous creatures are supposed to have warning signs, visible markings. He’s in standard issue Resistance gear - green and faded and ill-fitting. Luke meets his eye for a moment and Poe’s heart jumps up into his throat and his lungs freeze. For a second it looks like he’s going to say something, but Poe just gives him a little twitch that could maybe be a smile, if an observer was feeling generous, and books it out of the room. Halfway back to his bunk he stops to catch his breath, leaning against the wall. If asked, he couldn’t exactly explain why he needed to run. It’s not that he thinks he’ll be chosen. He doesn’t even want it, not really. He’s a pilot, a damn good one, and that’s all he ever wanted to be. If he played Luke Skywalker in games of Rebels and Troopers a time or two, well, so did every kid in the Yavin system. If the idea of his dad finding out he had a Force-sensitive son does something to his internal organs, that’s neither here nor there.

His father is dead, so it’s a moot point anyway.

But it’s one thing to know in your soul that you’re just another guy. It’s a far different thing to have Hope of the Resistance (and the Rebellion before it), Luke Skywalker, cast his ageless gaze across your face and then away, the gentlest of rejections. It’s not necessary, and it’s not going to help anything.

When he gets back to his room, Finn’s there. This isn’t altogether odd - he’s usually a little shy about showing up unannounced, but sometimes BB-8 is there alone, and the two of them are always finding excuses to hang out. Since waking up after Starkiller, Finn and the droid have developed the oddest sort of love-hate relationship that Poe has ever seen. All they seem to do is complain about each other, but the second Black One touches down, BB-8 is off to find Finn, and whenever Finn gets out of a strategy meeting he’s off to find BB-8 and tease him about something.

When rewriting BB-8’s naming conventions to take “Master” out of his directives, Poe never actually gave him any program to run in it’s place. As a result, BB-8 tends to name people variations on things he associates with them. Poe is “My Pilot,” and always has been - it’s almost the words exactly, with just a slightly different inflection that lets him know it’s a name. Finn was originally something that sounded like “Liar,” but since they’ve become closer, BB-8 has started referring to him as a series of beeps that sounds closest to “Ornamental Shrubbery” or “Pretty Trimmed Plant.” It  might be something that’s getting lost in translation, but Poe wouldn’t be surprised if “Shrubbery” means something particularly funny to BB-8. They’re simpatico on most things, but droid humor is something Poe can’t really hope to get the hang of. Something about processing information at a rate that is exponentially faster than a human mind makes the jokes a little hard to translate.

Rey’s name sounds like “Steel Wall,” which is not something that needs explaining.

In any case, they can’t seem to get enough of each other, so it’s not uncommon for him to come home to see Finn curled up on his bed and BB-8 playing music, or talking at him, or just staring in a way that would be creepy if BB-8 was someone organic. It’s still a little creepy - they’ve talked about improper staring, but BB-8 just said, _The colors and shapes of Ornamental Shrubbery are very good for optical processors; the information is pleasing to process_ , and that’s not really something Poe can argue with. He’s not entirely sure what to do with the fact that his droid has a crush, but he’s mostly just letting it run it’s course.

Finn’s alone now, though, shirtless and standing in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the ‘fresher door.

“Um. Hey, buddy,” Poe says, not sure if he’s walking in on something private. He really hopes BB-8 isn’t here.

Finn’s forehead is wrinkled in concentration and he turns sideways, looking at the mirror.

“I look different,” he says.

Poe closes the door behind him. It’s not like Finn to be vain.

“Different from whom?”

Finn says nothing, just squints into the mirror and puts his hands on his hips, pivoting front to side.

“What’s up?” Poe asks, stepping up next to him.

Finn runs a hand over his belly. “This is new. This, too,” he squeezes his sides, the soft bits above his hips.

“Oh, the fat?”

Finn nods. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Poe laughs. “Yeah you have. You know Snap. I mean, everyone has a bit, but you can tell the most on him.”

“Is it bad?”

“No, no. Not at all.” He looks at Finn’s reflection in the mirror and bites his lip. “Not at all. Um. It’s just fat. You know, when you take in more calories than you burn up, that’s what happens.”

“I know how calories work.”

“Right. Well. That’s what it looks like.”

Finn cocks his head to the side, which puts the curve of his jaw and neck right into the overhead light, and Poe has never thought the buzzing, yellowish bunker lights were any sort of flattering, but they are definitely working at the moment. He swallows.

“I suppose it makes sense,” Finn says slowly. “In the First Order everything we ate was regulated based on our physical activity. So there wouldn’t be anything extra.” He looks worried for a second. “Am I failing?”

“Failing? Failing what? No, no, of course not. You’re just more unregulated, that’s all.”

Finn nods, then pokes the new softness of his belly. It’s just a bit round, nothing Poe would have thought to notice, but he supposes if you’re used to a standard-issue Stormtrooper six pack it would be a change.

Finn grins suddenly, blindingly, turning towards Poe. “I like it.”

Poe can’t help but grin back. “Yeah? That’s great, buddy.”

“Do you have it, too?”

“Do I have fat? Yeah, man, everybody does.”

“Can I see?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Poe shrugs off his jacket and yanks his undershirt over his head. There’s a second when his arms are covering his eyes that he thinks _Why didn’t you just pull the hem up, Dameron you idiot. You don’t actually have to strip._ But by then it’s too late. He looks into the mirror at the pair of them, both sideways, and slouches to stick out his gut.

Finn laughs. “You’ve got more than me.”

“Yeah, well, I mean I’m sticking it— Here, go like this.” He sucks in his belly and then slouches again, pushing it out. Finn does the same and looks at the pair of them in the mirror.

“Heh,” Finn says, not quite a laugh. It makes his belly bounce a little, so he does it again. “Heh, heh. Ha ha ha.”

Poe snorts. “Having fun there, pal?”

Finn beams up at him. Poe beams back. Finn pokes him in the side, and he twists away.

“Yours is good,” Finn declares, looking almost proud. “Good job.”

“Thanks. Means a lot.”

They stand there, shirtless, beaming at each other in the mirror, and for the first time in a very long time there is nowhere else in the galaxy that Poe would rather be.

 

The next morning he wakes up with a hymn in his head. _Fucking Skywalker_ is his first thought, which is not really fair. Jedi aren’t, as far as he knows, particularly into the hymn-singing parts of religion, and even if they were, it’s an old Yavinese song that Skywalker probably wouldn’t even understand.

His dad wasn’t from Yavin IV - no one is _from_ Yavin IV, or hadn’t been for ages before Alderaanian refugees and old rebels took over - but he was from the same system and raised in a very Yavinese religious tradition. When Poe woke up, it was with the echo of his dad’s rumbling baritone singing “ _Porcho e Alluaana_.” “Only by Faith in the Force.” He loved it; his dad sang it often, sometimes as a lullaby, sometimes at funerals, sometimes after a few glasses of wine. There was no doubt that he believed every word; sometimes he seemed to shake with it. He’d take Poe under one of his arms, close his eyes, and sing, and Poe would feel it vibrate through him, through his collarbones, his shoulderblades, down every vertebra.

Poe dunks his head under the tap in his refresher to drown out the sound of it in the back of his head. He immediately regrets the instinct— as satisfyingly dramatic as it is, he’s stuck with unevenly wet hair that’s going to curl more on one side and make him look like half-used bird’s nest. He’s late enough as it is, though, so he runs a comb half-heartedly through it, throws on a clean shirt, and takes off for Command.

BB-8’s been wandering —he likes to bring reports of what the mess is serving for breakfast on days they actually get to eat— and catches up with Poe a few hallways away.

_No Shrubbery?_ He beeps, sadly. _He is not in your room?_

“Just ‘Shrubbery’ now, is he? What is that, a nickname?”

_Not “Shrubbery,”_ BB-8 sounds like he’s rolling his optical sensors. _I said ‘Shrubbery_.’

“I’m sorry, buddy, you know I do my best, but that sounds exactly the same to me.”

BB-8 makes the whirring noise that’s his way to say, _Never mind_ , or _Ugh, organics_.

He sends BB-8 over to tend to C-3PO as soon as they arrive, glad to have avoided the awkward “Why was Finn not in your room?” conversation. They’re going to have to have another talk about boundaries and that fact that you can’t just decide that a human belongs to you. Poe is very much aware that he belongs to BB-8, who, as a highly organized being, likes to keep his things together. There are times when he arrives home late and sleep deprived from a 35 hour flight and BB-8 guides him into his bed so deliberately and carefully that he feels like a favorite book being tucked safely back onto a shelf. It’s nice, to him, to belong to something, but he and Finn have lived very different lives. Finn needs to get the hang of belonging to himself without worrying someone’s going to steal him away.

It’s still odd to think of there being a “normal” day in the middle of a war, but any day that doesn’t involve flying kind of blurs together into one big olive green wash of administration. He doesn’t resent this side of command, that’s not the issue. He knows full well that the team on the ground is the only thing that’s let him see the other side of thirty, and it’s he takes his strategic roles very seriously.

It’s just that he’s not entirely sure he’s good at it. There’s something about being safe underground that makes him doubt every decision as he makes it, makes the schematics look a little skewed, like he can’t trust his vision. He’d been promoted because of his work in the field, commanding squadrons, making split second calls to bring more pilots home than any other captain in the Resistance. But that doesn’t necessarily translate onto the ground. He has a sinking suspicion that he’s at his best when he’s panicking.

For the first few months he considered talking to the General about it, but never got up the courage. _She’s a pilot, too_ , he finally decided, _and she gave it up because she’s needed on the ground. At least you still get to fly_.

He goes to the hangar after he’s dismissed, even though there’s nothing really for him to do there. His unbuttons his collar and takes a deep inhale of  engine oil and burned out wiring.

Jess is leaning against the ladder up to her X-wing in ratty work pants and an undershirt, staring out through the open doors of the hangar. He’s about to shout a greeting, but something about the way the early evening light catches the side of her face, the distance in her eyes, shuts him up. He comes up behind her instead, letting his boots crack against the duracrete so he doesn’t surprise her, and tucks himself up along her back, chin on her shoulder, arms fastening around her waist. She shifts a little to make room from him, but her eyes don’t move.

“How’s it going, Testor?” he says softly, digging his nose into the braid running along her neck.

She’s silent for a long time. “Sad,” she says, finally, breaking off her staring contest with the outside world.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He nods, rocking his chin up and down against the curve of her shoulder. She tilts her head to the side to give him room.

“That’s nice,” she says.

He laughs and rubs the sharp point of his chin harder into the muscle. “Anything I can fix?”

She sighs. “Probably not.”

“You want to come back to mine tonight?” he asks. “Make you feel better?”

“Pity fuck?”

“Never a pity fuck with you.”

“Yeah, all right.”

He lets his hands slide down to her hips, mapping out the shape of her hipbones with his thumbs. He lets his mind shift into the pre-sex mode where she isn’t his best friend or a fellow pilot or any of the dozen other things she is to him from day to day — or rather, she still is all those things, but she’s also someone he’s about to sleep with. So the warmth of her skin on his bare arms takes on another dimension, he lets himself smell her sweat in a way that wakes up his taste buds, feels her breathing under his hands and notices the shift of muscles that he normally takes for granted. They have to compartmentalize it or it will get messy—he’s not capable of being anywhere near as casual as she is—and he thinks he’s pretty good at it. Sure, occasionally her pink-cheeked, bed-head appearance first thing in the morning can send some signals misfiring as they drink their caf in the mess hall, but in general he really doesn’t think of her in a sexual way on a daily basis. When they decide it’s happening, though, he’s all in and he loves it.

He’s never asked how it works for her, if she decides she’s going to be open to a certain person when the moment comes around, if she’s always lowkey good to go with whomever. How she sees him. He thinks he probably doesn’t want to know.

He can tell from here that she doesn’t have anything on under the undershirt, and that’s something he’d much rather be thinking about.

“I had a good talk with Finn earlier,” she says, unexpectedly.

“What about?”

“Personal stuff.” She holds onto his hands and pulls his arms tighter around her. There’s an evening breeze picking up, and she is really, really not wearing anything under that shirt. “He’s pretty smart,” she says.

Poe bristles, straightening up a bit. “Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Easy, rathtar. I’m not saying I’m surprised. I’m just saying I like him. I like talking to him.”

“Pretty sure he’s single.”

She laughs. “I’m not what he’s looking for.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I couldn’t be what he needs, even if I wanted to. Kid needs someone to be loyal to him.”

Poe turns her a little so he can look her in the eye. “Jessika Pava, you are easily the most loyal person I know.”

She waves her hand at him, exasperated, but her cheeks and the tips of her ears are a little pink. “Not you and me loyalty. He needs, like . . . Finn and Rey loyalty. He’s never had that. Back . . . before, you know, they never let them stay with one unit for too long. Unnecessary attachments, he says. And he got in trouble for it the most out of any of them. Of course he did. So they kept moving him around.”

“He’s got us now.”

“Yeah, but. I mean, if he’s ever looking—whenever he starts looking for somebody to sleep with or whatever, it’s not going to be me. It’s not compatible. He’s the commitment type, from what I can gather.”

“Can’t really speak for him, though, can you?”

She thinks for a moment. “No. But I don’t think I’m wrong. And I’m not sure I’d be interested, anyway. I like him, but. I don’t need— I don’t know. There’s Rey, anyway. So he’ll be fine.”

Poe tries not to let his face fall while she’s looking at him. “Yeah, they’ll be good. Hey, want to bring Snap in? Really make a night of it?”

“Good Force, I must look like shit. It’s been ages.”

“We’ve been neglecting him. Think he’s been lonely?”

“Snap’s never lonely for more than five minutes and you know it. Fuck it. Yeah, bring him in. I can sit on his face while you fuck him or something; it’ll be nice.”

Poe hums happily, imagining it.

“Do you think you’ll ever fall in love?” he asks. “Like a commitment type deal?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know that I’m missing anything as I am. I’m young, anyway, aren’t I?”

Poe nods. “Well, you’ve always got me if you want me.”

She laughs and kisses his cheek.

He hums happily. “Me and Karé, probably. Can’t speak for Snap—I expect he’ll settle down with somebody again if he sees the other side of the war.”

“Not Karé, probably. Actually.”

Poe pulls back to look at her. “What? Why? What did I miss?”

Jess looks down. “Ah, nothing really. Just. Her last girlfriend kind of. Hated me? Like, I thought she was cool with us . . . you know. But she was not cool with it. At all. So.”

“Bini?”

“Yeah the little— Yeah, Bini. I should have guessed it, but I just figured—”

“That’s not on you, man. Karé should have asked her.”

“Yeah. I just feel shitty. I don’t know. So things have been weird since they broke up. And she really wants a girlfriend, and sometimes I get this feeling she wants it to be me, but I just . . .”

“Yeah.”

“What about you? You’re going to fall in love. You’re not so young.”

He sighs. “You know me, I fall in love seven times a day. I’m an open— Man, I’m a sucking chest wound. Walking around with a fucking rib spreader in all day, hoping something requites me.”

“That’s very dramatic.”

“I’m a pretty dramatic person.”

She holds her fist in front of his chest and squeezes it in time with a heartbeat. He mimics her until she smiles.

“That’s my favorite part of your anatomy.”

“Oh really?”

She grabs his wrist and kisses his knuckles, and he keeps it beating so she feels it against her lips. He grins at her.

“I’ll have you singing a different tune in bit, eh?”

“You know I can’t carry a tune.” She sticks out her tongue, so he growls at her and yanks her close to kiss her. Normally he’s not one for making out in the open hangar—despite the rumors that spread every time he has to do heavy maintenance work in the summer, he’s not actually an exhibitionist—but it’s chilly and she’s warm and he’s a sucking chest wound and this is something he doesn’t have to pretend to be good at, because there’s no way to measure success or failure.

He lets her up from the kiss and she’s laughing, bent nearly in half with her cheeks pink and her braid swinging around. When he looks up, Rey is standing in the open doorway with the suns setting behind her, practice staff braced on her shoulder and still in her training gear, and he goes momentarily breathless.

_That was some kiss_ , he lies to himself.

Rey nods at them, and Jess bites her lip awkwardly and shuffles away from him by a few inches. He can’t quite read the look they’re getting, so he just smiles politely as she passes by. Jess looks like she want to talk about it, so he beats her to the punch and spins away from her towards the door.

“Let’s find Snap, come on.”

She rolls her eyes, but she does follow.

The sex is great. Snap is surprised but pleased to be invited, and both Poe and Jess had forgotten that he laughs when he comes. The pair of them follow him over, delighted, as he shakes with breathless laughter under and around them, and Jessika leans forward to kiss Poe through it, and afterwards he curls up next to two of his favorite people and sleeps like a rock.

Snap even gives him a kiss on the cheek at breakfast, which he hardly ever does anymore, so everything’s coming up Dameron.

Of course that’s the moment his guard is down, and the moment he stands to take his tray to the dish pit he nearly knocks over Luke Skywalker.

“Sorry, sir,” is all he can get out before Skywalker raises a finger and stares at him, hard.

Poe tries really, really hard not to close his eyes. That damn hymn is playing in his head again, and he doesn’t have the time or the energy to have more sex and knock it back out again.

“Commander Dameron,” Skywalker says pleasantly. “Will you come to see me after your shift today?”

This is unexpected. “I, uh. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Where?”

“You know where I’ve been training the newly discovered Force-sensitives?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes.”

“That will do nicely. Thank you.”

And with that, he’s gone. Poe sinks back down onto the bench. Everyone is staring at him.

“Oh shit, Poe,” Snap says, laughing a little in an awed sort of way. “If your dad were here—”

“Fuuuuuck,” Poe breathes, dropping his head into his hands. “It’s probably nothing. It’s probably— He wants to talk starfighters, right? T-65 versus T-70. ‘You blew up a giant evil space station? Cool! So did I! Twice! Suck on that you fuckin’ —’”

“Who is that supposed to be?” the General asks from behind him. He startles a look around to where his entire table of traitors are very pointedly looking the other way.

“No one. Nothing. Your brother. Sorry, General.”

Iolo looks like he’s about to explode from trying not to laugh.

“If you can make my brother curse in public, I’ll give you twenty credits,” the General says drily. “He’s become so proper in his old age.”

Iolo does laugh, then, high and surprised.

“You lot are lucky I have a weakness for pilots.”

“As you keep reminding us, sir,” Snap says cheerfully.

“Move along, kids,” she says, stoic, but with a hidden smile. “Work to be done.”

She calls the pilots her kids more than anyone else. “I’m young,” Jess had said early on, and while that is true compared to him, she’s still older than Rey. Than Finn, even. And it’s been a long time since the rest of them could be reasonably called kids. Something about the group of them together, something about the proximity to death, something about the lull between missions when they’re all about to crawl out of their skins with the pent up anxiety and nowhere for it to _go_ — something sends them right back to the Academy in a lot of ways. Teasing, flirting, back-talking, fucking. It’s like the General’s their favorite teacher and they all have homes and parents to go back to at the end of term.

Rey and Finn aren’t like that. To be fair, neither are Connix or Bini or Cero T’Le.  The orphans, the refugees. The people who don’t have fond childhood memories to reenact when things get overwhelming.

It makes him feel shitty when he stops to think about it.

If the General thinks he’s distracted during three out of the four meetings they have together, he thinks she probably knows why. It’s unclear exactly how her connection with Skywalker works, but there’s a base-wide assumption that if one of them finds something out, it’s the same as both of them knowing. He wonders if she knows what Skywalker’s going to say. Tries to look for something in the way she wishes him a good evening, some hint of pity, of judgement, of “what in the galaxy are you going to say to your father?” Which is ridiculous, because Kes Dameron is dead, and he has been for four years, and Poe is— not _over it_ , exactly, but he’s accepted it, and accepted that it sucks, and kept moving.

It’s just that everything got shuffled around after Kylo Ren; everything shelved and organized and shut up in drawers got thrown about and flipped over so everything he’s finished working through is all fucked up again, and everything that should be top priority—analyzing intelligence, flying, the cause, the cause, the cause—is hard to get to. He knows it’s there, like an alarm going off in his brain, but he can’t seem to gather it all back together. If BB-8 could just get at his brain, that would fix everything.

He’d never agree to it, which is probably for the best and makes Poe thankful that he messed with the droid’s obedience programming. No one as sarcastic as Poe Dameron can deal with a factory reset astromech—he’d never have survived their first year together. He specifically remembers being stranded on some Force-forsaken moon in the Dandoran system with no working comms and having to walk engine fuel bucket by tiny tin bucket up from the nearest village, saying “BB-8, I literally order you to stab me in the fucking eye with your screwdriver.”

He actually helped T’Le write a sub-program to help the newer droids process advanced sarcasm after BB-8 gave him a good dressing down about when orders are appropriate and when they are not.

(There was also a very drunken night when he made an unwelcome pass at a mechanic who turned out to be very young and very easily spooked that he lay on the floor mumbling at BB-8 to cut his dick off. He doesn’t remember it, but BB-8 tells him the story whenever he feels like Poe is making a bad call.)

But either way, there are plenty of days where lobotomy by droid is preferable to the constantly fluctuating tide of his brain.

Kes Dameron loved his son. This has never been up for debate, and Poe never questioned it. Even as a young boy when his friends were running off to some colonist festival in town that he was kept from because it was a temple day, even then when he was angry and embarrassed, he knew his father loved him. That’s why there were rules; that’s why there was prayer. His father loved him and was terrified, just as his father before him had loved his son and been terrified.

“Tell me what you believe,” Finn had asked him once, not long after Qiorna’a when he decided to learn about all things religion. “I know you believe in the Force, obviously, but Jess said things are different in the Yavin system.”

Poe had thought for a moment, tested the raw and swelling parts of his mind for resilience. “She was talking about how I was raised,” he’d said. “There’s two different things: the way you’re raised and then what you believe when you grow up. Sometimes it stays the same. For me, it didn’t. So what I believe now is the Force, and that it’s everywhere, and that sometimes very special individuals can speak to it in a way that makes it speak back. And that it tends towards creation. That’s the important part, that’s where the faith comes in. You talked about faith?”

“Yeah. It’s not obedience; it’s something else. That’s what Jess says.”

“Right. Even though I don’t have solid proof, I have faith—a belief that I choose to refresh within myself, sometimes despite all evidence—that the Force has a tendency towards creation. That things which destroy will eventually be broken. That the Force, as much as it can want anything, wants life. Supports life.”

Finn considered this. “But that’s not how you were raised? With faith?”

“I was. It was just— My dad was from Yavin, you know, and a pretty small community. But the religion there is pretty much the main one throughout the system. It’s similar to what I believe now, but he believed people have a lot more connection with the Force. Normal people, not Jedi or anything. That things that happen to us are done to us, specifically, by the Force. Because of what we deserve. If we pray a certain way and we practice certain things, focus our minds, we can call upon the Light Side of the Force to make good things happen. And then we’re taken care of after we die, or when we’re in trouble. If we fail to do everything right, we call down bad things.”

“Sounds like being a stormtrooper.”

Poe had gaped at him, then shut his mouth and actually thought about it. It stung, but that didn’t mean it was wrong.

“Sorry,” Finn looked embarrassed now. “I don’t mean to say— I’m not trying to say anything about your dad.”

“No, it’s okay. I see what you mean. And that’s why I changed, when I got older, I think. I couldn’t keep— The fear was a problem. But the faith was different. We believed that if we did the right things, we’d be okay. That there was something we could do. I miss that, sometimes. Believing I could change things.”

“That’s not like being a stormtrooper. Even if we did things right, sometimes we still— You couldn’t depend on it, I mean. So it’s not like that at all, I guess. Sorry. Forget I said anything.” Finn had looked away, and Poe had felt a tightness in his chest, and they’d both stumbled over each other trying to change the subject.

It stayed with him, though, the comparison. It echoed a lot of what he thought about when he was going through teenage rebellion, off at the Academy and experimenting with philosophies. Getting drunk at the Academy temple trying to riddle through what they’d done so wrong that they should lose his ma. If his dad would ever forgive him. If he’d ever forgive his dad. If it was all bullshit.

_Like being a stormtrooper._ Maybe that what it had been like, to be Kes Dameron. Shara had never been as devout. It hurt his dad, Poe knew, that she never fully understood it, but he loved her and he worked harder, tried to protect her with his prayers and his devotion.

He knew his dad loved him, but there had sometimes been a wall between knowing it and feeling it. He loved him, but he couldn’t trust that young Poe wouldn’t mess something up and doom them all. He loved him, but having a child meant more for the Force to take away if he put a foot wrong. He loved him, but. It was never simple.

And now he’s dead.

Poe ducks into the main refresher after his last meeting and splashes his face, stares into the mirror. He looks like himself, like he always has. Older, maybe. When his dad was his age, Poe had been five. He tries to picture himself with a five-year-old, but the image won’t focus. He presses a towel to his eyes and takes a breath.

“Luke Skywalker,” he says to himself. “Hey, Luke Skywalker. How’s the Force treating you? Fuck. _Fuck_.”

He tosses the towel in the bin and runs his hands through his hair. At the end of the day, he figures, the holiness of things doesn't matter. Whatever Skywalker tells him won't bring his father back, won't undo the damage in his brain or take away the nightmares, won't give him some magical powers he can use to guarantee Finn will have a good life or prevent Poe himself from letting anyone down ever again. 

 

As an experiment, just to prepare himself, Poe lets himself reach out for the first time in a long time. Just slightly, just a slight relaxing in the back of his mind, a deep breath and a hum somewhere inside his skull. He imagines the bones in his neck sliding open, sending out vibrations like a long distance beacon. He imagines he can see Finn, a warm red ball of energy, and Rey's cool grey stability. Jess and her rich, loyal blue, Snap's laughter bubbling like fresh running water. The General's unshakeable weight, like an anchor in the midst of everything.

He opens his eyes and sees himself in the mirror, just himself, nothing special. He feels silly for a moment for imagining things, acting like a kid. But the constant buzz behind his eyes is quieter now, and he feels like the weight in his chest might be a fraction lighter. It's not much, and he has no idea what Skywalker will have to say about it, but perhaps it's a start. He takes a deep breath, sets his shoulders, and heads outside, squinting against the light.


End file.
